Musoscribe Review of Pure Electric Honey

Though it far too often is the case, avant garde music need not be chilly and foreboding. Sometimes it can be warm and inviting, while still maintaining its outré, weird-and-wonderful characteristics. That’s the case with Pure Electric Honey, the 1988 debut album fromAnt-Bee, reissued on CD in 2013.
Pure Electric Honeycertainly bears few sonic hallmarks of the late 1980s. Some sonic touchstones include Frank Zappa‘s late-sixties music; the legendary SMiLE sessions from Brian Wilson; and (relatively) more modern artists such as The Residents and – most notably, I think – Elephant 6 Collective artists Olivia Tremor Control. Now, Ant-Bee (essentially Billy James and a large cast of other musicians) recorded Pure Electric Honey long before OTC cut their debut long player Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle, but the two acts are clearly kindred spirits, even if they arrive at sonically related destinations via different pathways.